WHY WE NEED TO RE-ENGINEER OUR HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS?

Multi Disciplinary Edu Global Quest (Quarterly), Volume 2, Issue 4#8, October 2013

www.mdegq.com Page 77 ISSN 2250 - 3048

WHY WE NEED TO RE-ENGINEER OUR HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS?

Saurabh Chandra

UGC-NET (Public Administration)

Email: [email protected]

Contact: +91-8009074196

ABSTRACT

At the beginning of India’s independence in 1947, there were 20 universities and 500

colleges while student enrolment at the tertiary level of education was 0.1 million. After

independence the growth has been quite impressive .This has increased to 611 universities and

university-level Institutions and 31,324 colleges as on August 2011.

Despite of high institutional growth, Indian Higher learning Institutions are still

struggling hard to overcome their weaknesses, fulfill the aspirations of the people and to keep it

in consonance with the changing need of a rapidly transforming economy & young democracy.

According to the recent world University ranking 2013 India’s higher educational

institutions have once again failed to find a respectable place in the world’s top 500 universities.

In this paper, an effort is made towards understanding the major weaknesses of higher

educational institutions of India. The Author in this conceptual paper has tried to highlight the

need to re-engineer the higher education institutions in India, emphasizing upon the re-

engineering, in accordance with the Institutions of higher learning of U.K.

Keywords: Indian Higher education, Global education, Educational Re-engineering

mailto:[email protected]



WHY WE NEED TO RE-ENGINEER OUR HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS?

Saurabh Chandra

UGC-NET (Public Administration)

Email: [email protected]

Contact: +91-8009074196

Woodrow Wilson asserted, ―One can never learn the weakness or virtues or peculiarities

of any system without comparing it with other system. Allaying the fear’s that comparative

method may lead to the import of foreign system, he says; if I see a murderous fellow sharpening

the knife cleverly I can borrow his ways of sharpening knife without borrowing his probable

intention to commit murder with it.‖

The essential requirement in order to promote economic and industrial development in a

country is the capacity of the countries higher education system to develop skilled manpower in

adequate number. This capacity decides the future of the country. Therefore, Universities and

other Institutions of higher learning are regarded as the Incubators of Future, Health and

Prosperity.

At the beginning of India’s independence in 1947, there were 20 universities and 500

colleges while student enrolment at the tertiary level of education was 0.1 million. After

independence the growth has been quite impressive .This has increased to 611 universities and

university-level Institutions and 31,324 colleges as on August 2011.

Despite of high institutional growth, Indian Higher learning Institutions are still

struggling hard to overcome their weaknesses, fulfill the aspirations of the people and to keep it

in consonance with the changing need of a rapidly transforming economy & young democracy.

The major weaknesses of the higher learning institutions call for reengineering of the entire

system.

Some of the major weaknesses of the higher educational institutions in India are as follows:

Indian higher learning Institutions failed to attract more talent in teaching and research in

comparison to China and United States of America. Although India’s population is 80 percent of

china and 375 percent of United States, the PhD/research output of Indian Universities is only

mailto:[email protected]



about 55 percent of China’s and 40 percent of the United States. According to Higher Education

at a Glance, issued by UGC on 21st march 2012 Students Enrolment in Research in Year 2010-11

was 1% and in Post-Graduation it was merely 12% of overall enrolment in various courses in

Indian universities.

There is a huge gap between the demand and supply. According to the recent report of

HRD (Human Resource Development) Ministry, ―presently about 12.4 percent of students go for

higher education from the country. If India were to increase that figure of 12.4% to 30%, then it

would need another 800 to one thousand universities and over 40,000 colleges in the next 10

years." Addressing a higher education summit organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers

of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said ―We will need 800 new

universities and 40,000 new colleges to meet the aim of 30 percent GER (gross enrolment ratio)

by 2020. Government alone cannot meet this aim; The HRD ministry says that the foreign

Institutions could fill this gap to a large extent. Close to 50 Foreign universities may enter India

inner future. But realistically speaking, the foreign Institutions could not fill this gap. This is the

third attempt being made by government to liberalize education system. Two attempts were

made in 1995 and 2006 to bring foreign universities to India, but considerable challenges still

remain. The University Grants Commission (UGC) called for a major thrust for expansion of

higher education and promotion of greater regional and social equity in the 11th FYP. During

this Plan, provision was made for setting up of 16 new Central Universities and 374 Model

Colleges in low Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) districts. The Government of India provided for

concomitant expansion with equity through implementation of the recommendations of the

Oversight Committee. There was also a continued focus on achieving quality and supporting

reforms in higher education and promoting excellence. But considerable challenges remain: All

adopted measures yielded results with a significant increase in enrolments and reduction in

overall social group disparities. However, as the 12th FYP document states, considerable

challenges still remain. Access to higher education is still less than the minimum international

threshold levels, distribution of Institutions is skewed, enrolment in public universities is largely

concentrated in the conventional disciplines whereas in the private self-financed Institutions, the

student enrolment is overwhelmingly in the market-driven disciplines. The concern that merely

increasing the number of higher educational Institutions and their enrolment capacity will not

achieve the national developmental goals without concurrent attention to quality and its access to



all those who desire it, is addressed in the 12th FYP. Also special efforts need to be made to

ensure fair and impartial treatment to the disadvantaged sections of the society in making

available to them the benefits of higher education.

The problem of inadequate financing and mismanagement of funds in Indian higher

education Institutions still prevails. Experts says India need to attract Indian and International

teachers to Indian Universities to improve quality, spend more on higher education and research

and utilise the funds more effectively. Some Institutions like IITs, IIMs, research Institutions like

IISc, central universities are funded by central government so they have fantastic infrastructure,

good faculty, and money for research while state universities and Institutions lack all

these. Indian higher education system failed to establish a balance between the central and state

governments to bring all the higher education Institutions at the same level.

According to the available official statistics the expenditure on R&D in the field of

Science &Technology as a percentage of gross domestic products (GDP) was 0.8 percent during

the year 2005-06 in India. For perspective, countries spending the most on S&T as a percent of

their GDP were Israel (5.11 percent), Sweden (4.27 percent), Japan (3.11 percent), South Korea

(2.95 percent), the United States (2.77 percent), Germany (2.74 percent) and France (2.27

percent). Among other countries, China (1.54 percent), Russia (1.74 percent), U.K. (1.88

percent) and Brazil (1.04 percent) have spent more than India. BRIC countries have been

investing heavily in developing infrastructure for research and development in different fields of

S&T as well as in Atomic Energy, space sciences, electronics, telecommunication and bio-

technology. China R&D spending was highest (1.5 percent of GDP) in 2007 followed by Russian

federation (1.1 percent) and Brazil (1.0 percent). India’s expenditure was lowest (0.8 percent)

amongst the BRIC countries in 2007 (UNESCO, 2010). ―Despite, being widely recognized

that teaching and research are complementary, there is growing dichotomy between them and the

two systems work in isolation in India. Merely four percent of research expenditure is made

through higher education Institutions in India compared to 17 percent in the US and Germany

and 23 percent in the UK. Even in China, more than 10 percent funds on research are spent

through the universities. Not only research spending through academic Institutions is low, but

also these are poorly connected to research Institutions. In most industrialized countries, in

contrast, these work together in tandem. It is an accepted fact that research is stimulated,



informed and occasionally even germinated as a result of instructional activities. Being actively

involved in research makes one a better teacher, and teaching students makes one a better

researcher‖, says Mr. .Pawan Agarwal from ICRIER Think ink.

According to Altbach 2010, Several Asian countries have undertaken ambitious plans for

improving higher education, and some are making impressive progress. China, South Korea

Singapore and several others have invested heavily in higher education, with the top universities

improving significantly. Other countries – notably India, Indonesia, Vietnam and most of the

poorer Asian countries – have a very long way to go. This shows the need to improve the

standard of our higher education Institutions.

Quality enhancement in Higher Education Institutions is the biggest challenge before the

present Higher Education system in India. The Times Higher Education world university ranking

has nine universities from China with just one from India. Another latest ranking by Guardian

Higher Education network shows nine Chinese universities among top 50 Asian universities,

while no university from India makes it to the list. The 2010 survey by the London time’s higher

education supplement shows no Indian university in the top 100.

The question is:

How to provide world class teaching and learning in Indian higher education Institutions?

In order to accomplish this objective UGC has formulated and implemented from time to

time certain schemes/initiatives enabling Universities to strive towards excellence. UGC

formulated schemes exclusively meant for universities, exclusively for colleges, for both

universities and colleges, for professional development of faculty of universities and colleges

and for recognition of academics of eminence. But these schemes/initiatives have so far achieved

limited success. It has been observed that policy framework is carefully planned at the level of

the Planning commission, MHRD and UGC. However, the policies are not fully implemented

mostly because of faulty management of the higher educational Institutions, which was devised

in the pre-independence period seems to be still continuing. The new challenge facing the system

of higher education in the country cannot be met without a total overhaul of the structure of

management of higher education Institutions. This has become all the more necessary because of

globalization, which requires talent, competence, drive, initiative and innovation at several



levels. It was also recommended by the scholars that new methods and procedures of financial

regulations should be devised, there should be better coordination and new technologies of

information and communication should be utilized for obtaining administrative efficiency. In an

environment of global competitiveness it is important that Indian products of the higher

education Institutions are as competent as graduates of any other country, not only in their

scholastic attainment, but also in terms of the value system and richness of their personality.

Unless the quality and standard of Indian higher education Institutions is enhanced zealously and

sustained at a high level through innovations, creativity and regular monitoring, it seems to be

difficult for the Indian academics / professionals to compete in the world scene. This calls for

suitable assessment and accreditation mechanism to be available in the country to ensure the

quality and standard of the academic / training programmes at higher educational Institutions.

According to a World Bank –Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry

(FICCI) survey ,64 % of employers are ―somewhat‖, ―not very‖ , or ―not at all‖ satisfied with

the quality of engineering graduates’ skills because of the low quality of their education. Infosys

found less than 2% of its 1.3 million job applicants acceptable in 2007.

In the Report of the working group on higher education for the 12th

FYP published in

September 2011, Quality Improvement is also considered as a major strategy for the 12th

plan .It

is said that Independent quality assurance framework are essential to address the quality deficit

in the higher education......in order to bring the Institutions at par with world quality Institutions.

According to a recent government report two-third of India’s colleges and universities are

below standard. However, according to MHRD annual report 2009-10, a proposal for mandatory

accreditation in higher education and creation of an institutional structure for the purpose of

regulation is under consideration. India’s highest-quality Institutions have severely limited

capacity. In order to increase the supply quality should be maintained.

According to the recent world University ranking 2013 India’s higher educational

institutions have once again failed to find a respectable place in the world’s top 500 universities.

Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is the only institution that figures somewhere

between 300 and 400 as ranked by the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) for

2013.American universities have captured 17 positions of the top 20 slots, with two going to the



British universities and one being occupied by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at

Zurich. Of the 500 universities ranked, American universities captured a total of 182 slots;

European universities occupied 200 slots — but only three made the top 20. As many as 17

Chinese universities were included as well. Harvard University has been described as the world’s

best university with a score of 100; followed by Stanford University with a score of 72.6.

University of California, Berkeley; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and University of

Cambridge have scored around 71 points.

The bitter truth is we don’t stand anywhere in terms of excellence in higher education.

All these challenges before the Indian higher education system, calls for reforms in the

Governance of our higher education Institutions. The higher education must be viewed not

merely in relation to its own past, but also relative to its neighborhood and the world. In this

present era of globalization, Indian Higher Education cannot isolate itself from the global trends

of higher education and global standards. We need to develop world class higher education

Institutions–well recognized and well connected with the world, thus we will have to look

beyond our geographical boundaries and study the management & governance of higher

education Institutions of the world most efficient and effective higher education Institutions that

prevails in United Kingdom.

The reason for advocating United Kingdom instead of United States of America is that

United Kingdom’s higher education is a major contributor to the economic success and social

well being of the country. Higher education is a national asset, whose excellence in teaching and

research is world recognized.

It is quoted by Nigel Thrift, a higher education thinker, on an online blog that, ―A good

friend of mine from the United States, observing the British higher-education scene, noted that,

whereas the United States had taken 30years to make its system more market-oriented, it was

taking United Kingdom only two.‖

India inherited its present education system from United Kingdom. United Kingdom is

one of the world’s best destinations for research and higher education with world’s top

universities and colleges. The structure of higher education in United Kingdom might be



different from India but we can study, re-engineer (according to our needs) and apply the model

in Indian higher education system.

The aim of such study should be to find out how the top higher education institutions in

United Kingdom are governed? How the higher education Institutions of United Kingdom

formulate their strategies/programmes and schemes? How these strategies/programmes and

schemes are effectively implemented, communicated, monitored and evaluated? What is the

Management techniques utilized in the higher education Institutions for obtaining administrative

efficiency? How the higher educations Institutions coordinate with governmental departments,

agencies and machineries? What is the financial mechanism in the higher education Institutions

in United Kingdom? How the higher educations Institutions attract more talent in teaching and

research? How the higher education Institutions set their learning standards and how these

standards are met? How the Institutions of higher education are connected with the research

centers?

The study should reveal the overall governance process of top higher education

Institutions of United Kingdom. The findings of this Study would be very useful when India will

renovate its higher education system to meet the present global standards. Thus, it will contribute

significantly in the development of higher education in India.

If we want to secure our future, we will have to raise the quality and standard of our

higher education Institutions and make them globally competitive. India cannot aspire to a future

as an advanced society without cultivating large numbers of original thinkers to inspire new

generation.



References

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